Progress
'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Tue 5 Jun 2012 08:32
Having been AWOL fishing over the weekend and spending Monday apparently recovering from too much fresh air and having his phone on divert, Martin surfaced today.
He has cut the price of one engine rebuild from F$800 to F$560. One engine will be in tomorrow without fail. It has been run and is OK. I brought 4 litres of diesel and a suitable amount of oil; and ATF fluid. So far so good.
Now the sting. The other engine has a bent con-rod. I'm not altogether surprised as it was running when we hit the reef, but conker-bollocks has had the damn engine for 11.5 months now and has only just discovered this? He knew that it ran roughly before, that's why after the engines were cleaned and oiled we decided to strip them both down. That was sometime last August, possibly even in July, I'm not too sure, it's all a blur.
I have emailed the main south coast Volvo agent in the UK and I just hope that they can lay their hands on a con-rod PDQ. Sourcing from the UK is cheaper and quicker than via Australia or NZ. American suppliers seem not to deal with my 'dinky little lawnmower engines' and they don't like non-US credit/debit cards. The elektrikery-men still have their phone on voice-mail, but I know where they live!
So, progress of sorts, provided one engine shows up as promised tomorrow, and last week, and the week/month before that.....
All the fiddly little jobs that were going to be done afloat are now being done ashore. There's only one more blind to clean. I can't source the parts I need for two of them, so they'll have to wait but the others will be up tomorrow. The pelmet boards are in place bar one corner piece, the boat is looking quite 'homey'.
Tomorrow should see this finished. The boat is pretty clean inside and in the cockpit, so next job for Butto will be the roof and fore-deck. Sails on Friday I think, if the engine parts are on their way then we can think about anti-fouling, booking the crane and shooting the elektrikery-men.
Or just sitting in a corner with a straw up my nose and going 'wibble'.
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